


Ashes and Silk

by Nelja-in-English (Nelja)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: ladiesbingo, Dreams, F/F, Fire, Fire Ghost Agnes, Kissing, Mention of Jude Perry/Agnes Montague, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 14:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20622749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelja/pseuds/Nelja-in-English
Summary: Through the years, Gertrude has been thinking about her bond with Agnes a lot.





	Ashes and Silk

The feeling of burning from the inside out - it had more than one drawback. Gertrude had managed, though a magical ritual found in an old book (maybe brought to her by the spiders, she no longer minded at this point) to get rid of the worst of the pain. Only then did she discover it was not the only effect of the weird bond she had forced onto the Lightless Flame's fire messiah.

The woman was so _sad_.

If Agnes had been sad about being denied a chance at her ritual, about her integrity as a fire avatar - then Gertrude would have felt a deep satisfaction that would have compensated for the rootless feeling of sorrow.

But it was - it seemed the bond was mutual, and just as Gertrude was attacked by the Desolation, Agnes - Agnes got through the Beholding the truth about all the people she had ever hurt. It should have delighted any avatar of the Desolation, but this one had loved the fire so much, and been raised by such devotees, that she'd never understood _not_ loving the pain.

It had been a dark revelation for her, to understand people who felt that way. Of course, she deserved it. As a gift and as a punishment. And Gertrude probably deserved to know it and to feel it, for the same reasons.

This awareness didn't make the melancholy they shared less unpleasant, though.

* * *

Gertrude had gotten used to the nightmares. She didn't enjoy them, and as often as she could, she insisted on taking the statements in written form. 

But sometimes - she didn't like to admit it to herself - but the need made her body and, even worse, her mind weary. So she read one of those old ones, and the dreams were weaker, but they still came, at least once or twice for each statement.

And this one had been about Agnes, still inoffensive as destroying the world went, but quite active in her cult. The statement giver had had the misfortune of seeing her recruiting, of being too curious. Gertrude could relate. She couldn't help.

She could, as always, only watch this man, who was looking too insistently at Agnes and her little cultists, who would be punished for it. And then Agnes turned her head, and her gaze met Gertrude's. Usually, Gertrude could only look at the statement giver; the others were shadows. But Agnes' face was abnormally distinct.

Gertrude had never met her - but she knew the dynamics of the cult - but she had held her hair in her hands - but she knew the cold sadness of Agnes' face in her own heart - and anyway their souls were linked, caught in the same web, and Agnes knew it as much as Gertrude did.

Gertrude felt free for an instant - like she had wanted to see Agnes all these nights, their link only blocked because her dreams had already been spoken for. But it had been an ever-present pressure, discovered only as it ended for an instant. Agnes was looking at her so intently - Gertrude was doing the same, but Gertrude was the Archivist, and Agnes was very beautiful, so it was less surprising on her side.

Agnes raised her hand, and Gertrude wanted to get closer, to touch her - dream fire couldn't kill her - but then the scenery changed, the statement giver was threatened by one of the cultists, Agnes was no longer there. Gertrude was feeding the Eye and feeling very empty herself.

* * *

"I hate you," the woman spat in Gertrude's direction.

Identifying the occult on sight - the monsters, the cultists, the humans who had been marked - was one of the few Eye gifts Gertrude had cultivated.

Fire creatures were different. She recognized them as her blood was boiling in her guts. And for this short, muscular woman, it was even stronger, and Gertrude knew Agnes favoured her.

Gertrude didn't fear the Lightless Flame cultists. Most of them had at least a persistent doubt that killing Gertrude might hurt Agnes too, and the ritual she'd already used would help her to bear any lesser pain.

"Oh my. That will ruin my day, for sure," Gertrude answered mockingly. 

The woman seemed so very angry that Gertrude wasn't sure she wouldn't test the extent of her protections now.

"I will destroy what you love," she promised. Gertrude smiled. Good luck to her to find anything. It was not easy for Gertrude herself at the best of times.

But the gratuitous sadism of the Desolation was still something she despised, enough to answer the provocation, enough to use her powers in a way she usually avoided. "And you? Who do you love?"

The woman's eyes grew wide as out of her mouth spilled the burning love she had for Agnes, the delicious pain and despair. Gertrude pressed her, not to hurt and humiliate her more - one question had been enough - but because it was good to hear about Agnes, how she was, what she was doing. Gertrude pretended it was about the cult's plan, just a little, for plausible deniability. They both knew it was not about that.

"Is that why you hate me?" Gertrude asked. But the woman fled before she could ask: is it because we have a link you can never have?

If the woman had been reasonable about it, maybe Gertrude would have confessed she was a bit jealous of her too. But it seemed honest conversation had not been her goal. Gertrude wondered whether this altercation would give her the will to burn the Archives. It was a possibility she wanted to keep well alive, like an ember under ashes.

* * *

Gertrude was not sure about the theory that her life was linked to Agnes as well as her soul. To be fair, she had always thought that if it _was_ true, as Agnes was not aging, it would be her problem at some point, not Gertrude's.

But now Agnes had died, revenge from the Web probably, and Gertrude was still here. And she didn't feel a special hole in her soul, in her mind - she had been worried about that too.

But then Jack Barnabas came to give her a statement, and Gertrude felt an unnatural fondness for him, even before he started to talk, even before she knew. And she realized - she didn't feel a hole where Agnes's soul had been, because she was still there.

Gertrude felt stupid hope when she should have felt fear, about the reality of her death. She'd made sure to triple check that she was really dead. Of course, the Lightless Flame didn't have the brains to fake a death, but maybe Agnes herself had wanted to flee, maybe the spiders...

She found the morgue employee who had seen her body. She made him tell everything, and it was useless. 

She chose a relevant statement - Ronald Sinclair's, as it happened - and read it. In the dreams, she saw Agnes as a child. And she thought Agnes was looking at her - but instead of turning into her adult self, she combusted like a torch. 

Gertrude assumed this was the answer she had sought.

Next time she had to use C4, she thought about Agnes as the explosions in the night seemed to burn brighter than usual.

* * *

It was a house that had been recently burned, and that no one cared to repair. Not enough to be a place of power to the Desolation, certainly, just enough to make Gertrude wonder whether it had been an accident that happened here.

"I didn't do it," said a soft voice at her back. "I'm no longer strong enough."

Gertrude didn't recognize this voice; she was sure she'd never heard it before. She turned around, too fast. It wasn't that she was afraid. It wasn't that she needed to know. It was both.

The creature looked like Agnes, but was made of fire. Gertrude immediately remembered the ghost of Raymond Fielding that a statement giver had seen on Hilltop Road. He had probably been kept alive by a Web ritual - tied to the house. Agnes, though, had been linked directly to Gertrude, not as a friend of the Web, but as an enemy, and was it enough...?

Gertrude wanted to ask. She wanted to understand.

Instead, she said "I'm glad to meet you."

"Not that I tried to burn this specific one," Agnes said. "But I've tried with some spider houses. I can barely destroy a single web. I disliked having a destiny, I wanted freedom. But I didn't hate to destroy things. Destroying enough of them should have burned the gates, should have sounded like freedom. But it didn't."

Despite the rippling flames, Gertrude could see a pensive expression on Agnes' face. The fire ghost waited a bit before adding. "I'm glad to meet you too."

"Do you know why the Web did this?" Gertrude asked again. It sounded harsh. Gertrude was harsh, but she didn't need to be right now. "I know it was about preventing your ritual, probably revenge against you. But..." Why me specifically, she wanted to ask. Was I just a tool where anyone could have worked, or was it something between us?

There was no reason for Agnes to know either, but she had known the Web more closely than Gertrude ever had. Gertrude wasn't complaining about this.

"I thought about it, and maybe the other rituals too? I heard about you. You stopped a lot of them. Did it help, sharing minds with me?"

"It did," Gertrude answered. It made a lot of sense. She had played into the spiders' game, if that was the case, and she didn't regret it at all. She could have been used for far worse.

"It sounded wonderful, what you did. I wish I had been you, sometimes."

"If I understand the theory correctly, you were. Somehow. In those moments, anyway."

"Good. And I'm glad I was able to love," Agnes answered.

"This was certainly not my influence. It was all you."

Agnes was pensive again. "I'm not sure it's true. It's your influence if I was so curious about humans anyway. It starts like that."

"It's only the beginning, then!" Gertrude snorted. Then she confessed. "I have been curious about you."

"Yes," Agnes answered. "Me too."

Once Agnes' kiss had melted a man's face, but now the burn was almost soft, like the flame of a candle. It hurt just good enough and Gertrude wouldn't let go for something so trivial.

The ghost dissolved in her arms. Gertrude persuaded herself that Agnes needed to rest to appear in physical form again. She was not gone. Because Gertrude didn't feel a special hole in her soul, or she persuaded herself she didn't.


End file.
